


Didn't Work Out

by Nanashi Jones (miaoujones)



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Conversations, F/M, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-09
Updated: 2005-10-09
Packaged: 2018-02-14 21:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2203140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miaoujones/pseuds/Nanashi%20Jones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not everything worked out after the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Didn't Work Out

"Trowa Barton."

She says it without inflection but it's only when he turns and she sees his face that she's certain it's him. She never expected to see him in a place like this but she doesn't say so; that would be too obvious a thing to do.

He doesn't say anything either but he does smile—which would be the obvious thing from nearly anyone else, but not from him. He smiles at her and she's struck by just how much of his face she really is seeing. "You cut your hair." 

He nods, his eyes following her as she sits sideways on the bench next to him.

"Why?" She crosses her legs decorously at the ankles.

"Why did you?" he returns and it's her turn to smile.

"Sometimes a girl likes a change." 

"Indeed."

He's smiling again, amused now. She hopes she doesn't flatter herself unduly that she's the source of his amusement.

"So, Trowa," she begins; and then, catching herself, thinks to ask: "Are you still using that name?"

"No." Smiling, he angles his back to the corner of the bench, his body turned her way if not quite facing her. "But you may."

"So, Trowa," she resumes, graciously accepting his offer, "what have you been up to since last we met?"

"I fought in the Eve War." His smile is gone.

She knew this, of course. Her own smile is gone too. "And after that?"

"I went back to the mercenaries for a while."

This, she did not know. She didn't even know he had been a mercenary before; that wasn't in the files and she wonders if anyone knew, if he ever told...

She looks at him, not sure what she's seeing, what he's showing her. "Why didn't you stay with them?"

"Didn't work out." There is no flash in his eyes, no chill in his tone. He remains facing her, no change in his expression. No expression at all. Finality if not closure in that very absence.

Her gaze slides off his, even though his didn't tell her to. She can look away _because_ he didn't tell her to. She turns towards the window and sees her own reflection but not his. She looks through herself, out through the window, her eyes restless for something upon which to alight.

When she looks back to Trowa, he also turns his head in perfect time to meet her.

Since he hasn't shut her out entirely, she says, "What about the circus?"

This was practically public record, if you knew how to look at public records properly—which she does—and he expresses no surprise that she knows about it.

"Yeah, I went back there too, for a little while. Didn't work out. I just." He shrugs. "Didn't fit in there. Didn't feel right there."

Dorothy has felt not quite right herself but she doesn't say so. She suspects he already knows.

She hesitates before her next question, of two minds as to what it should be. In the end she takes a chance, forgoing the lions in favor of, "What about Catherine?" Public record, conjecture, covert investigation (though she thinks he might have known she was at that one performance) and still speculative conclusion.

He confirms it with a grin, something deeper than amusement, genuine emotion this time. "Yeah," he says fondly. "Cathy was cool. I liked her."

After a short silence, she says, "But not enough?"

"Not enough," he agrees.

"And," her breath catches slightly but she pushes the words through like she doesn't need to breathe, "what about Quatre?"

"Didn't work out."

His words, familiar now, are deceptively laconic this time. But she's not deceived. She probes the fullness she felt beneath them: "Same reason?"

"No," Trowa says.

"He loved you," she prompts, wanting more.

"Yeah. But it was too much."

She's about to ask him why he didn't want Quatre to love him, when he continues, "It was too much when he used that word."

She waits, suddenly bored, for him to say _love_.

"Trust," Trowa says, and she looks at him with bright eyes again. "He said, 'I trust you,' and."

He doesn't finish the sentence and she nods: trust is too big, too much for words. It's just too much.

"Love," he breaks the silence now, "is easy in comparison."

"Don't you need trust to love?" There's an edge, a tease in her voice; but at the same time, she really wants to know.

"Not when it's physical," he says and although she listens for the edge and tease in him, she doesn't hear it.

"Could you love me?"

He looks her up and down. "Yeah."

"So it's all about looks?"

"No," he says as he eyes her again, "but they help."

"So I'm your type?"

"No." He looks at her once more, this time full in the face. She lets him look and meets his gaze, returns it unflinching.

Their bodies are interlocked when the air raid horn blares its first warning.

They come apart when the nurse rattles the key in the lock, pants still around their knees when she gets the door open. Promises of upped meds and confiscated privileges surface on her face but she says nothing of that now. No time for that now.

They let themselves be herded with the others down the stairs and through the door marked 'SAFETY' in large block letters that want to bully you into belief. Into the reinforced concrete shelter. The asylum's asylum.

They can't hear the horn anymore, can't hear anything outside and above, but Dorothy fancies she can feel the impact tremors even deep down here.

"What happened?" she says, vibrations in her throat as soft as the shockwaves in the earth around them. "What happened to the peace?" she says aloud, not for the first time.

For the first time, though, someone answers: "Didn't work out," Trowa says beside her and she looks at him for more. But he's not looking back, and there is no more.


End file.
